Note:

Note: While Zentraedi ships have been assigned Terran naval/space type designators, it must be stressed that their size and armaments placed them in a class of their own, matched only by contemporary Tirolian and modern Terran construction of like designations. As such, their designations must be viewed as indicators of intent and use rather than absolute strength. In addition, the proper translation of the Zentraedi vessel designations into English was never completely agreed upon; for instance, some texts call the Thuverl Salan-class heavy cruiser a 'troop cruiser' or 'multi-purpose warship'.

Names and Disposition:

These ships were built at numerous locations throughout the Robotech Mercantile Empire and entered service from 1560 through 2010 in at least three consecutive versions, with the first two versions having very small production runs and surviving units upgraded to the final version as they came in for refits. The exact number of constructed units cannot be given due to the loss of records in the Invid invasion of Tirol and the destruction of the final remnants of the Tirolian fleet over Earth. However, an estimated guess puts their number at 1,276,500 units.

Of this number, approx. 150,000 were destroyed prior to 2010. The Imperial Fleet contained approx. 350,000 Thuverl Salan cruisers, all sharing in the "infection" of that fleet. Of the remaining Tirolian-controlled ships 620,000 were part of the Grand Fleet. After the Zentraedi Holocaust, an estimated 185,000 Thuverl Salan-class cruisers remained intact or salvageable. Most of these failed or were decommissioned due to protoculture depletion prior to 2020.

Ship's Complement:

Ships' crew (600 men),

Air Group (400 men),

Troops (2000 men),

Life support limits are for a full combat complement and about 1000 supernumeraries (4000 Zentraedi total). Approx. four times this number can be carried for a limited period of time.

Dimensions:

Length: 2018 m over all.

Height: 756 m over all.

Width : 690 m over all.

Mass : 39,500,000 metric tons operational (typical).

Fuel mass: 16,000,000 metric tons maximum (typical).

Propulsion Systems: (Standard for all Zentraedi starships)

Main power system: Zorrelev-462-Trafla protoculture-fueled Reflex furnace cluster. The powerplant of a Thuverl Salan class vessel can nominally deliver up to 38.9 Petawatts of power, and can operate for 75 minutes at maximum power before overheat initiates auto-shutdown.

Maneuvering Thrusters (74): fusion-plasma reaction thruster clusters with steerable nozzles. Fifteen thrusters are mounted on the dorsal circumference of each engine blister, four are mounted in the dorsal hull inboard of each engine blisters, four are mounted to the sides of the aft superstructure, twelve in the forward part of the hangar doors, and eight on each side of the nose, four on the dorsal and four on the ventral.

Reaction-mass Thrusters (10): Ten Varrelev Ts-Raladis fusion-plasma reaction thrusters with protoculture energizer mounted in two vertical rows of five in the port and starboard rear ends of the ship.
There are no secondary thrusters; breaking maneuvers are made with the main thrusters using exhaust deflectors opening in the dorsal and ventral engine sections.

Planetary Capabilities: The Thuverl Salan class has atmospheric capabilities through its reaction engines and anti-gravity systems. The hull has sufficient structural strength to make a cold landing, but the lower sensor antenna will need to fold inside the hull first to avoid crushing them.
The ship will float in an ocean, but only the upper ingress/egress ports will open above the waterline, which greatly hampers access to the ship.

Endurance and mobility limits:

The dry stores endurance is 17 months maximum; after that, the ships of this class need to restock. Water stores are recycled almost totally. If fewer or no auxiliary vessels are carried, the freed hangar space can be used to store additional consumables.

The mecha consumables supplies (mainly missiles) are plentiful due to the volume of the ship; the Thuverl Salan-class is able to sustain continuous combat operations for more than 20 days.
The missile magazines for the ship's own launchers are typically empty after three major space battles.

The Reflex furnace can function for about 35 years at normal usage levels before an energizer rebuild is necessary.

At full power, the main propulsion systems can nominally produce up to 1.09 Teranewtons of thrust at a minimal reaction mass efficiency profile, or as little as 21.6 Giganewtons of thrust at a maximum efficiency setting. At lower power levels, these thrusts are commensurately smaller.

At full power, the Thuverl Salan's can nominally achieve a maximum delta-v of 359.3 kps at the cruising acceleration of 0.1 gees, a maximum delta-v of 72.7 kps at the battle acceleration of 1.0 gees, and a delta-v of at most 20.9 kps at the flank acceleration of 2.8 gees. At lower power levels, these ranges are commensurately smaller.

The fold systems were not navigationally guaranteed for any single jump beyond 10 kiloparsecs. If longer voyages were required, the ship had to conduct multiple fold jumps.

The maximum sustained atmospheric speed is Mach 4. The maximum hover time on the anti-gravity systems is limited only by the protoculture supplies and maintenance requirements.

Including regular refits, the hull is designed to have an anticipated lifetime of 640 years.

Weapon Systems:

(Note: only the types carried by the last version are mentioned. All older
versions of the Thuverl Salan were refitted with these systems).

Makral Deim 653 particle cannon (3): The main anti-ship weapons are three heavy particle cannon. They are mounted in three superfiring
turrets in the forward dorsal hull, on the incline of the superstructure of the ship. The particle beam has an effective range of 300,000 km. and a full power discharge of 1.9 terajoules, equivalent to 380 tons of TNT. Although the cannon could be fired at lower power settings (and commensurate increases in the rate of fire) the highest power setting was typical in combat. The rate of fire at this setting was approximately six salvos per minute.

Makral Mossil 918 particle cannon (48): For centuries this combined particle beam and laser weapon has been the standard medium cannon armament on Zentraedi vessels. Two different beam weapons (variable frequency laser and particle beam cannon) are provided on one mount so that the discharge medium can be chosen as the optimum for the local target and environment conditions. Both weapons have the same yield at the muzzle. The laser can be fired in a low power mode directly before the particle beam fires, this setting is typically used to burn a vacuum path for the particles through an atmosphere. Because of the slow recharge time of the larger weapons, and the flexibility inherent in the double mount, this cannon turret is the weapon system most often utilized on board Zentraedi vessels. For ground support, it is the only effective weapon as the other systems are to heavy to be used around own troops. The cannon, as most Zentraedi beam weapon systems, has an effective range of 300,000 km. Each full-intensity shot has a yield of 1000 MJ, and the cannons can cycle through their firing sequence once every three seconds. The exact location of these weapons varied by building yard, but the most common scheme mounted 14 of the turrets in the forward section of the hull, another six forward of each engine, and the remaining 20 mounted in the sectors the forward weapons did not cover.

Deuawhaug Rasar 89 (22): A Reloadable Silo Launch System (RSLS), or as it is better known, a torpedo tube, capable of firing large anti-ship and ground bombardment torpedoes. The tubes can reload in 3.6 seconds, and have a 40 round magazine close-by. These launchers are mounted between the upper and lower hull shells in the nose of the ship. The missiles used are the SSA-1 Sniper (Lojredbeth Deuawhaugh) and the SSA-2 Scrapper (Letkes Deuawhaug) missiles. The former is a nuclear missile with a 326 kT reaction warhead, the latter is a conventional tipped missile with a warhead of 2.3 metric tons.
Both missiles are optimized for anti-ship strikes in deep space, but can be used in orbital bombardment modes or in an atmosphere.

Touwhaug Rasar 481 (70): A missile launcher mounted in a pop-up turret, firing anti-mecha/missile missiles, though the projectiles can
guide on point-blank enemy ships. When the missiles are released they are already on their intercept vectors, or very close to them. Each turret has a reload time of 3.6 seconds and a magazine with a 100 round capacity. They are mounted for spherical coverage.
The missile system used is the SAA-1 Granite (Gliquoun Touwhaug), a weapon with a conventional blast fragmentation warhead of 278 kg and an atmospheric range of 112 km. at a speed of Mach 7.5.

NOTE: Zentraedi starships mounted a large percentage of their
armament forward, for maximum attack capability. Other areas of the ships mounted correspondingly less weapon systems.

Electronics:

The Thuverl Salan class had a prominently visible and multi-blistered isolated sensor platform on the upper extreme bow. This sensor pad formed the mounting for the most sensitive EM sensors aboard ship; the isolation was intended to minimize transferred vessel vibrations. The sensor pad also contained several weapons mounts, hence while firing these weapons any gained accuracy was lost. However, this would only occur if the enemy had been targeted already, and the additional accuracy was not required to retain target lock on the opponent.

Note: a very few ships had half of their Nousjadeul-Ger and Regult mecha hangars replaced with hangars for a same number of Quaedluun-Rau mecha. There were plans to do this on all ships, but lack of resources delayed this indefinitely.

Design Notes:

The Thuverl Salan class was the most numerous Zentraedi capital ship
class, in addition to one of the most modern. Designed for ease of production
as well as for combat effectiveness, the class was produced in enormous
numbers, only exceeded in quantity by the ubiquitous Tou Redir scout frigate.

The basic hull shape of the Thuverl Salan was that of a bulged wedge,
with a superstructure rising from amidships and continuing to the rear. The
engines were mounted in the aft sides of the hull, protruding underneath the
hull proper in long blisters. In the ventral hull, between the engines and
under the superstructure, was a large dual hatch leading to the auxiliary
craft hangars. A large retractable sensor fin jutted backwards near the
hangar, other fins were mounted on the main hull and the engines. The foremost
portion of the bow incorporated a unique stabilized EM sensor platform,
providing the instruments mounted there with a vibration-free foundation.
Larger sensor blisters were mounted behind the sensor pad. The outer hull was
formed of two halves, an upper and a lower one, and a groove between them ran
most of the length of the ship.

The armament was diverse and effective. The heaviest cannons carried were
three large particle cannons, mounted in three turrets, superfiring in the
forward incline of the superstructure. This ensured the heaviest possible
salvo with the minimum exposed silhouette in standard Zentraedi combat
attitudes. The more commonly used medium particle batteries were mostly
concentrated forward as well, large clusters of the retractable turrets
bearing on the forward arc on and around the sensor pad, and forward of the
two reaction engines. The heavy torpedo tubes were also forward, firing from
the groove between the dorsal and ventral main hull. As usual, the defensive
missile turrets were mounted for spherical coverage.

The Thuverl Salan class also used the design philosophy used on the
Queadol Magdomilla force flagships and the Nupetiet-Vergnitzs fleet flagships
in that they carried a sizeable troop contingent as well as anti-ship weapons
and aerospace mecha, although all Zentraedi infantry and cavalry mecha were
capable of serving as space combat mecha, and typically half of the infantry
troops carried had received space combat training.

Internally, the Thuverl Salan class had nine main deck levels. The top
four decks were in the superstructure, and contained mainly the crew and troop
quarters. The main hull contained five more decks, with the main ship
functions such as engineering and the fold drive. There were mecha hangars on
the fifth deck, with four semi-circular discharge hatches directly forward of
the superstructure, on the eight deck, where the power armors and most of the
infantry mecha were stored, and on the ninth deck, which served as as the
flight deck for the Gnerl mecha and also as the embarkation area for the
auxiliary vessels. The standard fit for the Thuverl Salan class included the
large Quel Quallie EW/assault craft, orbital transports for the infantry and
for general use, space in-flight refuelling mecha tankers and small personnel
shuttles. The command center was located on the seventh deck (the central main
hull deck level), directly forward in the pressure hull, behind the sensor
pad.

History:

After the Ci'Va disaster, the Tirolian Empire was in what amounted to a
full scale war with the Ci'Vonian survivors and their 'infected' Zentraedi
allies. Much of the fleet had defected, and the remaining forces were too
small for anything but a defensive stance, quite apart from the impossibility
of finding the Disciples' new bases. Due to the nature of the threat, the
remaining Zentraedi no longer had a technological advantage. Hence the Masters
felt that production of large numbers of improved Zentraedi ships was one of
their first priorities. The Thuverl Salan design was a direct result of this,
designed with the firepower to take on most classes of ships captured by the
Disciples. The class was also meant to be produced on an unprecedented scale,
and its design was suited for massive production runs as well as for a long
production lifecycle, as volume and mass had been reserved at the outset for
the inevitable updates and refits that would be carried out during a designs'
lifetime.

In all these traits the Thuverl Salan class excelled, and as the years
went by the shipyards spread over the Tirolian Mercantile Empire produced
higher and higher number of Thuverl Salan vessels. Relatively few updates were
made on the basic ship, another tribute to the design teams. In action, the
Thuverl Salan cruisers proved to be quite effective, completely outclassing
any smaller ship such as the Tou Redir, and having the upper hand when going
against older Zentraedi designs such as were used by the Disciples of Zor.

Like the larger combat ships in the Zentraedi fleets, the Thuverl Salan
class doubled as a troop transport. A total of 2000 infantry and cavalry
troops was a standard allotment for this class, giving it a substantial
raiding force when deployed as single vessels, and made it a valuable addition
to transport and landing capacity when used in a planetary invasion. About
half the infantry troops were cross-trained as space combat pilots, and they
so outnumbered their Gnerl fighter mecha colleagues that the Regult pod was
assumed by the Terran forces to be the mecha of choice in space combat, when,
in fact, it was not.

By the time of the First Robotech War, the Thuverl Salan ships were the
backbone of any Zentraedi fleet, and they were therefore also prominently
involved in the earlier battles in the Sol system. The first encounter of
Terran forces with a Thuverl Salan was mere minutes after the initial
Zentraedi defold in the solar system, when an advanced force of these cruisers
took on the orbital fleet to clear the way for the main Zentraedi body and
fleet train. The Zentraedi lost one Thuverl Salan and another one was severely
damaged, but few ships of the Orbital fleet survived this encounter, and the
Zentraedi vanguard broke through their ranks with ease. Further combat in the
solar system saw the destruction of nine other Thuverl Salan ships, though it
must be noted that the Zentraedi were not trying to destroy the SDF-1, but to
capture it relatively intact.

At the time of the Zentraedi Holocaust, more than three quarters of all
Thuverl Salan cruisers ever built were present in the solar system, the class
on both sides together numbering almost a million ships. After the Holocaust,
relatively few Thuverl Salan class vessels remained operational, in the solar
system or spread throughout the Empire, and those that did soon lost power due
to protoculture depletion. The Earth forces commisioned 29 surviving Thuverl Salan cruisers
in the RDF Zentraedi fleet and later captured twelve more, but those were all
drained of protoculture and stored in solar orbit around 2019. Those ships were
wrecked by the Invid during their invasion.